[Tech4me]

Hi Rgreen. Thanks for sharing . I always find the comfort ,understanding and knowledge from all of you here.

Wow..You still have TR-4A...does it actually run ...what color is it..? I found this on wiki...

!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
1!

[coastie65]

Hi tech, That boat looks a lot better than some I had seen on the open water. That area you were picked up in wasn't a good area. As I recall, a little South & East there were a lot of Cambodian Pirates in the area ( Khmer Rouge). We were operating up in that area in that picture where we were firing the 5" mount. There was a Special Forces A Team up river about two miles that came under fire just about every night. We had made some Grills out of old 55 gallon drums and snagged some charcoal somewhere. We went up river and brought those guys out to the ship one Sunday and commenced to grill steaks. They enjoyed it and we sent them back with some goodies from the ship's store as well. That area was pretty much Viet Cong held ( No NVA as far as I know, but you could never tell). That was in the Song Ong Doc Province. That '68 Tet Offensive brought a whole new thing to the war. GI's would be sitting in a bar in Saigon. There were really no doors and a bad guy would walk by and pull the pin on a grenade and roll it in through the open door. They took out a lot of GI's that way. It wasn't safe to go get a Tiger Beer or whatever during that time. Incidently, in that picture where the munitions are coming aboard, after looking at it again, I think I was in that group. I think I am the one standing in the back on the left with his hand on his hip in the T- shirt. When it came to that stuff, I always tried to get the above deck work to get some fresh air and sun as I was in B-2 Engineroom. That was my primary reason for volunteering to do a ride along on the Swift boats. coastie

[Knifeblade]

I feel like the orphan child around all you squids, sheesh ;). Meh, it's all good. What came to mind was that no matter where or what, we DID. I think that's still unappreciated by many who "didn't". No disrespect intented to anyone, okay? Just my quick thought.

[coastie65]

Hey Knifeblade, We used to feel left out of the mix as no one considered the Coast Guard as an "Armed Force". We were part of the Dept. Of Treasury when I went in and later we were transfered to the Dept. of Transportation. We did have to maintain a military readiness and to that extent, it mean't an annual trip to sunny Gitmo to do the drills. The shore units were also tested, but in a different manner and it involved Navy Seals. The large ships had to maintain that readiness, because they were expected to slip smoothly in to a Naval command situation in time of war and beome a Navy unit. This was the case in WWII and Vietnam. Most of the landing craft in WWII form the DDay invasion to the Island hopping in the Pacific had CG Coxswains. The only Coastie Medal Of Honor winner, was a LST Coxswain at Guadalcanal. Most people equate the Coast Guard with their "Peace Time" activities, of which there are many, with a total force of less than 100,000. They are unaware of the "other side" of the Coast Guard. There are Coasties in Iraq doing port security work as well as training Iraqi's for the work. There have been 2 casualties in Iraq ( 7 in Vietnam, one of which was a shipmate of mine that I knew very well as he was my leading PO on my tour). You are as much of a part of this as anybody, so Thank You for your Service. coastie

[rgreen4]

No. When I went to Norfolk and reported into VS-24 in Sept 1967 and found out that we were leaving in two weeks for a three month Mediterranean Cruise, I did what I had been thinking of for a while. I traded it in. Actually I traded it in on a car that I special ordered, and picked up when I returned. For three month's I had no car payments, no rent payments, it was actually kind of nice. Now, if I had just stayed out of the shops in Italy, I would have saved a lot of money.

There are times that I miss that car though. It wasn't red, although that one is a beauty. Mine was British Racing Green, but had the steel wheels, I couldn't afford the wire ones. The green one was actually my second TR-4A, as my first on (white) was totaled in a head on collision on I-10 in Orange, Texas. I was driving from Pensacola to Houston for Memorial Day weekend. We were going to go the a baseball game as a friend traveling with me had never been to a major league baseball game. I got hit by a wrong way drunk driver in a pickup truck in the curve shortly after you cross the Sabine River. My buddy who was with me, was asleep at the time and had his seat belt loose. (No shoulder harnesses then) He hit the windshield with his face and was cut fairly badly. The doctor on call that night at Orange Memorial Hospital was a plastic surgeon. He said he quit counting stitches at 150. When Earl's stitches were removed, the cuts healed and the redness faded, you could not tell it. We did get to go to the baseball game although each of us had to watch it out of one eye, as his cuts had swollen one shut, and since I hit the steering wheel with my face, I had one swollen shut also.

At the time, in flight training I was in the Link Trainers (ground instrument training) so I didn't loose any time with my 13 stitches and broken nose. Earl was in the later part of formation flying so he lost six weeks. Ironically, he caught up to me in Corpus Christi, and we both reported to our Squadrons in Norfolk, his home town. There were only two VS squadrons in Norfolk at the time, VS-24 was the one I was sent to and he was sent to VS-27 who shared the hanger with us. We had the flight line on the outside on our side, and they had the parking lot. We kind of drifted apart after we got on the Randolph, and then of course when I went to the Philippines, I totally lost track of him.

For years afterward, I would flinch when using a freeway flyover exit at night when a car was coming on the opposite one and I would see the headlights coming toward me. I remember when the car stopped, I reached down for the lever to release the harness and thinking get out quick before it burns. After two swipes for the lever, I remembered I was in a car, not an airplane, and reached over and released the seatbelt and went to help Earl.

[coastie65]

My brother had little white MG Midget when he was stationed at NAS Glynco in Brunswick Ga. He gave it to our sister and bought a '69 Chevy Malibu SS 396. He was bringing it up my sister and was coming up I-95 and ran into some rain. For some reason, he couldn't get the top up so just stayed parked under an overpass until the rain passed. My Sister drove that thing until the wheels fell off almost. I think she ended up selling it. She has an '83 Datson 280Z w/ T Top stored up in the garage at their lake house in nearly mint condition, that was bought brand new way back when. It is black with a tan leather interior. coastie

[rgreen4]

A clean 280Z might bring some money with the right market.

You talked about the USCG not being considered part of the military. Actually, the CG has one foot in law enforcement and one foot in the military. People forget that the USCG has the power of arrest, while the USN does not. Many of the USN vessels doing patrol and interdiction carry a CG contingent aboard for just that reason. The big guns on a DD or Frigate can detain them, but the CG then does the actual arrest.

If you ever notice when the Joint Chiefs have a discussion with the flags behind them, there are 5 flags. 1) US Army, 2) US Navy 3) US Marines 4) US Air Force 5) US Coast Guard. That's also why the Pentagon has 5 sides. It was designed with WWII in mind and built during the War, so the 5 sides represent the above 5 Military Services. While WWII was the last time the CG was "officially" under the Department of the Navy, whenever it gets down to littoral patrols and combat, the Navy will always call for help from the Coasties.

I don't think that anyone who sees one of those nice big Cutters would confuse it for anything other than a warship. Granted, rescue is also one of their tasks, but Homeland Security is also one of the primary responsibilities.

[coastie65]

Actually, When we were deployed, it was to ComWesPac 7th Fleet. Our squadron Commander was a one Star Coastie, but his superior was a Navy Admiral as we were just one element of TF 115 ( Market Time, which was one of many operations going on at the time, another was Market Garden). These days The CG has the International Ice Patrol, Sar, Aids to navigation, Maritime Inspections ( includes recreational craft as well), Law Enforcement, Port Security, Disaster Relief as well as the military aspect. All with less than 100,000 personnel. This is not to mention the clean up from oil spills and assistance calls. I was going through a site on the Halfmoon ( I think it was the second link I put in back up a ways), and saw that the ship had 4 5" 38 mounts while in the Navy. There were two forward and two aft as I found some pictures of her back then, plus a description. According to the one site, we were awarded 6 battle stars in Vietnam, but I think that was a mistake, although supposedly came from the Navy archives, and It did miss the Navy Expeditionary medal award that I know she received in '62. We did receive One battlestar which I think was all we should have received anyway, unless somebody knows something I don't. I have a single bronze star on my Vietnam Sevice Medal & Ribbon. I was surprised to find out that the CG had pilots flying those Jolly Green Giant Helo's in Nam doing Downed pilot Rescues and Med Evacs. The Air Force was short of Pilots for those things and asked for help from the CG in the way of Pilots. Looks like we stuck our nose into everything. :D The one thing that has gone is the CG no longer has any manned Lighthouses or Light Stations / Ships as they have all been automated. Those things used to be pretty good duty though. The Loran Stations were a whole nother thing as they were a one year tour of duty and were in very remote areas and were considered Isolated Duty and you received Hardship pay as well as 30 days compensatory leave upon return. My brother was in the Navy when Zumwalt took over as CNO and started sending out his Famous or Infamous "Z" grams. He was telling me that they ended up with a beer machine in the barracks at Glynnco NAS. He didn't stay there unless he had the duty, as he and a shipmate had rented a trailer off base. He said that you could only use the machine if you were off duty. As I recall those "Z" grams were primarily aimed at morale issues. coastie

[rgreen4]

Knifeblade - all of us who served during the Vietnam War felt under appreciated. As one who went to a school that had a large Corps of Cadets (Texas A&M) I lost a number of classmates there, both in the Army and Air Force. As they did not have Navy ROTC there at the time there weren't very many of us who went to the Navy. To my knowledge, I was the only Naval Aviator (sometimes called belly button flyer) in my class or the one ahead of or behind mine.

In the mid 1989, the Scout group I was working with made a trip to Washington D.C. Of course part of the trip was a vist to the Wall. I let them all go, waited a few minutes and then went through by myself. I knew what my reaction would be, because there are several names up there that I knew personally in school. You have to be very cold not to be moved, and have never met a vet who can go through and come out dry eyed.

I never went to see Flight of the Intruder in the theater, and when it was on TV, I could only watch 10 to 15 minutes before switching to something else.

At least the returning Vets currently have a better reception and more support. I give credit to the fact that the "mainstream" media no longer has the lock on the dissemination of information as they used to have.

[mjd420nova]

Under appreciated is an under statement. When I returned from Viet Nam in early June of 1969, I flew into San Francisco to catch a shuttle bus to Treasure Island for school. I had to be in uniform and was greeted with boo's and spat on. From that day forward I always wore civies when I went off base. We were allowed to have civies on base but when I was assigned to a ship, we weren't allowed to have them aboard until later in 1970. When we were home ported in Pearl Harbor, the old locker clubs went out of business because we were allowed to keep them aboard. Later, in December I got an apartment off of Kuhio Ave, near Fort Derusie and got married in January of 1971. What a honeymoon, walking on the beach at Waikiki everynight for a year until we moved into a condo on Kinau St. Honolulu doesn't get that much rain but when it does, you better have a canoe handy and didn't park your car in an underground garage.

[Knifeblade]

I hear ya, coastie!!!!!!! Yeah, the CG seems always forgotten, but the guys in the CG were just as much in it as any of the other branches.

[coastie65]

The "Peacetime" CG had it's not so pleasant moments in the Body Recovery work. After they have been in the water for some time, I can assure you it is not a pleasant task. I was on two Shore Units Cape Cod Canal CG Sta. & Lewes Del. GC Sta. and have done that on both. At Lewes Del, we were at the mouth of the Delaware Bay, and we would have ships coming in going to Wilmington Del. or Philly. They would end of with a Medical Emergency onboard and we would meet them in the 40' Utility Boat we had. We would send up the Stokes Litter and they would put the person in there and secure them and lower them down. We would take them back to our dock where an ambulance was waiting. I remember one night during a roaring Nor'easter, we got a call that flares had been spotted. We took the 40' out to start a search. The seas in the Bay were running at 10' to 15' with a good wind out of the North East. We were using the searchlights and spotted one boat. The guy said it looked as if it was underway so we ignored it. As it turned out it was "surfing" and was in fact the boat we were looking for. It ended up on the beach high and dry, like the SS Minnow from Gilligan's Island. We continued the search and caught a glimpse of another boat as it was dropping into a trough as were. It was enough that a ton of flares went off and looked like a Chinese New Year celebration. We got ove to where it was and discovered a lifeboat full of Chinese Sailors. An incoming ship had seen the flares and as with International maritime rules, they lowered a boat to investigate and the motor on the lifeboat broke. We hooked up a tow and took them back to our station and had to lock the crew in the boathouse as they were undocumented. They had also gotten very sea sick in the boat and it was a mess. The next morning they were fed and they cleaned up the boat. We then set about checking the motor and found and fixed the problem. Afterwards we towed them back to the ship. There is an unofficial CG motto that says " You have to go out. You Don't have to come back." Coastie

[rgreen4]

coastie65 said:

There is an unofficial CG motto that says " You have to go out. You Don't have to come back." Coastie

A little military humor there.

But truthfully, that is probably the most unappreciated aspect of the USCG. Kind of like Cops and Firemen. You never give them a thought about them being there until you need them, then they are Heroes. There are times I think you guys will go out in weather that causes the Navy to button up. Kind of like the graphic on the Half Moon's home page, bobbing up and down in heavy weather when a sane person would be on dry land.

I go sort of involved in one of those things. We had two Marines who had gone out in Subic Bay in a canoe, and didn't come back. They found the canoe, but didn't find the two Marines for a few days. The afternoon they had found them I was coming back into Cubi with the HU-16 after take some passengers to Clark. As we were coming in we were notified that we had a couple of passengers we needed to take to Clark AFB. We didn't think anything of it, and taxied toward the Air Terminal. The tower directed us next door to the cargo terminial, which caused us to wonder, until we say the Navy ambulance sitting there. Our crew chief opened both rear hatches, and then joined us in the cockpit with the door closed. Even with the windows in the cockpit open it was bad, very bad. Thank goodness Clark was only about a 20 min flight. Even on the way back it was bad. Our crew chief was not happy as it was his job to get the odor out. I think he wound up using Lysol and Clorox. We didn't have the sprays then.

Our crew chief said that was bad enough to gag a maggot.

[coastie65]

There's usually nothing you can do about that as it permeates everything and it is time that takes care of it. All you can really do is mask it until time has done is job. As far as retrieval went, about all you could do was put some Vicks Vapo rub under each nostril. It helped to some degree. We had one case where when we got to the dock, the body was on a stokes and needed to placed in a body bag which we didn't have. The Delaware State M.E. guys did and it was out and ready. Next thing we knew those two guys walked up the road away from the dock and we had to load the body in the body bag. Only then did those two Yahoos come back and finish the job of putting it on a gurney and loading it in to the wagon. By this time the bloating had subsided, so it was relatively easy to get it in the bag although tricky due to the amount of decomposition ( they tended to tear apart real easy at that stage). In your case, once the aircraft had been scrubbed down, you could have done a low altitude flight with the hatches open as that would have helped to air it out some while racking up some more flight hours. I wouldn't suggest touch and go's though as that is too much work. Did you know that the Coast Guard is technically the oldest sea going service in the nation ? It predates the Navy by 9 years. The Coast Guard was formed in 1790 as the Revenue Cutter Service. It eventually was melded with the U.S Lighthouse Service and the U.S. Life Saving Service to become what is known as the U.S. Coast Guard. I can still remember the drills in Boot Camp with those old heavy wooden Surf Boats with oars that looked to be 12' long. They had my rank wrong on the crew list on the Halfmoon's site. I had a shipmate call me about it as well. I told him I was aware of it but hadn't contacted anyone. I haven't been overly concerned about it anyway. As far as the Unofficial motto goes, I guess it is a bit of dark humor. It has been around since the days of the old Lifesaving Service and the Surf Boats as you were expected to go out no matter what the conditions were if someone was introuble. These days they have self righting MLBs ( Motor Life Boats) and survival suits. They test those boats on the Columbia River Bar. That is the only shore unit that draws Hazardous Duty pay. They intentionally roll those things completely over to make sure they come back upright. The 40' utility boat wouldn't do that, if it went over it was over to stay. My dad and my Uncles were all Navy except one and he was career Army. He just missed WWII but was wounded on Pork Chop Hill in Korea and again in Vietnam. Another Uncle was Navy until after WWII and then enlisted in and retired from the Army. Both my brothers were in the navt as well, one was Reserve though.
Message was edited by: coastie65 Edited out content for lenght.

[Adama]

Hi Coastie,

I'm sorry, but 50+ (guessing here) lines of text without a break is really hard to read.

[coastie65]

What break ? Think of it as Ernest Hemmingway does PCWorld. Actually, I was surprised that I was able to remember that much as I haven't even thought about it much since then. Most of my memories were of my time on the Halfmoon as I was on it for a little over two years. It seemed like there was always something going on at the shore stations as well, well most always.

[rgreen4]

I a recent discussion with a friend of mine, I was reminded of an old family joke.

In the spring of 1966, I received a Draft Notification with orders to report for a physical and induction. Now, mind you my date of service is 14 April 1965 when I signed the paperwork while a Senior in college to go to OCS in Newport, R.I. During the in-processing procedure, we all turned in our Selective Service Cards (mine was the dreaded 1A) so that the Navy could notify all the local boards that we had been enlisted in the Navy (we were all had a temporary grade of NCOUI5 until graduation, except for the Chiefs we had going through). I don't know whether it was the efficiency of the Navy or the bureaucracy of the Houston Selective Service board, but someone didn't get the message.

When the notice arrived, my late mother noticed the return address and went ahead and opened it. She then called the board and in her own brand of humor, informed them that I would not be reporting as ordered. Keep in mind that at this time there were a lot of dodgers (not the LA brand), so the person at the board informed her that if I did not report they would come and get me. To this, my mother replied that they would have to catch me first.

After a few seconds the person at the board asked, "Where is he, Canada?" To this, my mother replied no, he is in Pensacola, Fl, in a Navy airplane flying at 10,000 feet. (Slight exaggeration, we didn't go that high normally). Then informed them that I was an Ensign in the Navy going through Flight Training. There was a little silence at the other end, than a "Ok, we will check with the Navy". Mom later tossed the letter, and I never heard anything from them again. Either they checked, or figured that the way the conversation went, it simply had to be true.

[coastie65]

:^0 I got my first in Oct. '65 while a Senior in High School. Yep, I was 1A NOT 1 SH ( Student deferment). The notice was for a "Preinduction Physical". I went to the main Post Office as ordered and we were loaded on a bus an taken to the Defense General Supply Center in S. Richmond ( An Army Installation) and given our physicals. At noon they gave us a box lunch to tide us over. Anyway, I flunked the physical due to high blood pressure. I was never reclassified. I enlisted in the Coast Guard over the Easter Holiday ( Spring Break). All that was left was to be sworn in after graduation. I was In Basic when my mother forwarded the letter from the Draft Board to retake the "Preinduction Physical". I showed it to my Company Commander ( DI ) and he read it and looked at me, then told me to go sit at his desk. I did and he had me write a letter to my draft board and "Kindly tell them that the U.S. Coast Guard Owned my a for the next 6 years ( four years active and two years inactive reserve) and they could just find someone else. I wrote the letter as instructed and he took it as well as my draft card and Classification card. He went somewhere for awhile and came back. He gave me my cards back and said it was taken care of. Then I briefly caught a bunch of crap for "Trying to leave the Coast Guard for another service". :D Such is basic training.

[rgreen4]

While responding in the very nice Veterans Day thread, I was reminded of a funny story, but it is more appropriate here.

I have a very good friend who started out in the Navy, and became a Corpsman and everything went well when he was attached to a Marine Force Recon unit. Then after his time was up in that duty station, they sent him to a Destroyer Escort, and it was discovered he got seasick. So they booted him out with a Medical Discharge. After a year of civilian life, he joined the Air Force as a Med Tech, and retired as an E-8 with slightly over 28 years total service. At one point he was stationed in England during 1976. They had a contractor on base he worked with who held the Order of the British Empire and had a lot of contacts in London. There was a recognition in London on July 4, 1976 of our Bi-Centenial. During this event, my friend had gotten an invite through his contractor friend, the Queen commented that "All is forgiven, you can come home now" followed by her wry smile.

It got a good round of laughter. British humor is in fact very dry.

It is ironic that the country that we have some of the best relations with, we have fought two wars against. And the three countries that we against in WWII, we have very good relations with.